


Spitfire

by trascendenza



Category: Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Genre: Community: halfamoon, Gen, Gender Issues, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-13
Updated: 2010-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-07 09:43:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trascendenza/pseuds/trascendenza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Back then she'd been a hellion.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Spitfire

Lureen had a keen hatred for the word spitfire -- or, more specifically, the men who'd laugh when they called her that, patting their extruding bellies and staring down at her like she was a spectacle at the carnival, why, look at that, a girl who thinks she can talk as loud as the boys and rides like one, too. Their cheeks were always burned red from the sun and their hats were never old or worn-down; they were her father's friends, after all. She would bare her teeth up at them and wish she were still small enough to sit on her father's knee, so she could kick them in the shins and still get away with it. Back then she'd been a hellion.

She wasn't dumb, so she learned to smile, quick and often; a pretty set of teeth and an even prettier set underneath would cover almost any transgression. She'd told more truth masquerading as a lie than any man ever caught on, got a cheap thrill out of watching them laugh extra hard once to cover up their brief moment of thinking she'd just gotten one better on them and they hadn't even been smart enough to understand it. Had an edge of hollowness to it, though, because in forty-odd years she hadn't found anything that compared to a sharp boot tip to bone.

Jack, now, Jack she'd liked. She liked the way he softened beneath her, how he melted wherever her touch directed. She liked that he didn't try to butt in on her business, in fact, seemed happy to leave the tough stuff to her -- he liked doing the sweet-talking, anyway. Something about him seemed to disarm the customers in a way Lureen couldn't; it was like they looked at her and sensed a snake just waiting to shed its skin and eat them up.

Daddy hadn't had much choice but to leave her the company, hard a time as she'd given him, because in the end, despite everything, she was still his little girl. Didn't matter if she hated him, didn't change the fact that she loved him, too. She didn't mind it so much, that he groomed her to be the son they couldn't have. Mama's crying in the bathroom and their trips to the doctor stopped when she was fifteen and it was the first time she'd ever said a prayer of thanks without being in church. She didn't mind that he had her up on a horse soon as she could walk, that he'd always told her that to make it in this world you had to be hard as nails and flexible as wire.

Neither she nor Jack made it long in the rodeo, but he was the only one who talked about it after half a bottle -- it'd never been about the money, for her. She loved the rush, and every Saturday she was out there with her girls, brushing and grooming if they couldn't make it out for a ride. Sometimes she and mama went out, together, something they'd never done when daddy was alive. Lureen watched Fayette out of the corner of her eye; occasionally she caught a glimpse of something glimmering there that hadn't been before. Fayette laughed like a braying mare and Lureen reveled in the sound of it.

All these years later, she stands in front of the mirror, adjusting the jacket this way and that, tightening the belt, kicking the heels of the boots against the floor, pulling the hat down lower, tighter, more coverage, more room to guess. She's forty-seven, too young to be widowed and too old to care, and she just drove five towns away and wore a scarf over her hair while she bought a suit the same size as her son wore when he was just starting to shoot up. It fits like a glove in some places, billows out awkwardly in others, and she smiles at her reflection, tipping her hat, because on a gentleman a smile will cover up almost any transgression, from lying to truth-telling to parading around town in a teenager's clothes with a made-up name, creating someone new out of someone who was always there, bursting to get out.


End file.
